Boehner: Budget Battle Has an Upside

Posted on Apr 11, 2011

White House / Pete Souza

Play nice: House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at a meeting last year.

Despite his party’s recent tilt toward austerity talk as a panacea proposed solution to the nation’s budget woes, and despite last week’s hysteria over a potential government shutdown, House Speaker John Boehner emerged from the fray Monday to declare that he and President Obama learned how to play together a little better from tussling over this issue. We’ll see how long that lasts. —KA

Los Angeles Times:

“We’ve been waiting for months for the president to enter into this debate with us. And I can tell you that privately I’ve encouraged the president: ‘Mr. President, lock arms with me. Let’s jump out of the boat together,’ ” Boehner said. “We have to deal with this, this is the moment in time that we’ve been given to address the problems. Forget the next election. Forget the next poll that’s going to come out. It’s time to do the right thing for the country.”

Looking back on the deal reached Friday, Boehner said it was by no means perfect, and even predicted members of his caucus are likely to vote against it. But he sold it as a “good start,” saying the government will now spend $78 billion less than would have been the case if Democrats had their way. And he credited the “tea party” movement for driving that progress.